Time to take off with another sci-fi book. Today is time for Fearless by Allen Stroud, where space opera meets murder in zero-g gravity. Many thanks to Anne Cater, the publisher, and the author for allowing me to take part in this tour.

Author: Allen Stroud Publisher: Flame Tree Press Pages: 368 Genre: Sci-fi, Mystery Publication: 8th September 2020

---

Synopsis:

AD 2118. Humanity has colonised the Moon, Mars, Ceres and Europa. Captain Ellisa Shann commands Khidr, a search and rescue ship with a crew of twenty-five, tasked to assist the vast commercial freighters that supply the different solar system colonies.

Shann has no legs and has taken to life in zero-g partly as a result. She is a talented tactician who has a tendency to take too much on her own shoulders. Now, while on a regular six-month patrol through the solar system, Khidr picks up a distress call from the freighter Hercules…

Review:

What seems like a simple rescue mission to a distress call, it becomes something much bigger then Captain Shann could ever imagine. There is murder, an unknown enemy, a lot of questions and barely any answers.

It’s a hard sci-fi story filled with all the technology, science, and details the genre requires while having loads of action to leave you up all night turning page after page. The book is told in three different perspectives, showing different approaches, motivations, troubles, and conflict each of the characters go through.

One of the things that I enjoyed a lot was the connection to our Earth, the version of it that we know. And while the book is set 100 years in the future and humans are colonizing the solar system, there are a few references to our time making the story closer to home, more recognizable.

Another high note was how Captain Shann’s disability isn’t a pity card or a defined characteristic of the character. Her disability is something that she has, not something that she is. And while she expresses her difficulties in the past and the present, and even the barriers that she needs to overcome because of her disability, it’s not the focal point of the story or the character. I enjoyed how badass she was portrait while still not having both legs.

Bottom line, there are still some loose ends and plot points that could be explored even further in a possible sequel. *fingers crossed* Although I must say that this book works as a standalone since it has an end to the mystery, it would just be a shame to stop there. *winky face emoji*

About the author:

Allen Stroud is a lecturer at Coventry University, where he teaches BA (Hons) Media and Communications. Stroud completed a Ph. D. at the University of Winchester entitled An Investigation and Application of Writing Structures and World Development Techniques in Science Fiction and Fantasy. This thesis covered his work on computer games, Elite Dangerous (2014) and Chaos Reborn (2016).  For Elite: Dangerous, Stroud wrote six guidebooks that inform the game’s fictional narrative and also served to help other writers with their novelisations set in the game world. 

He was a founding host of Lave Radio, an Elite: Dangerous fan podcast that started in February 2013 and runs the annual convention Lavecon. His novel set in the Elite: Dangerous game world, called Elite: Lave Revolution was successfully funded on Kickstarter and published in late 2014, with a second edition published in 2015. Stroud then supported Spidermind Games in developing the Elite Dangerous Roleplaying Game. Stroud worked on Chaos Reborn with Snapshot Games and is working on Phoenix Point, due for release in 2019.

Stroud was the 2017 and 2018 chair of Fantasycon, the annual convention of the British Fantasy Society, which hosts the British Fantasy Awards. In June 2019, he became Chair of the British Science Fiction Association, taking over from Donna Bond. Stroud continues to write academic papers, reviews, articles and fiction in science fiction, fantasy and horror. He lives in a messy house with two cats and his partner, Karen.

---

Add To: Goodreads Get a copy: Amazon UK Book Depository: Paperback* | Hardback*

The tour is just starting so don’t forget to check out all the other bloggers on this tour for more reviews.